


Rolling Papers

by nervoussis



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Shadow Monster | Mind Flayer Possessing Billy Hargrove, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:22:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29717817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nervoussis/pseuds/nervoussis
Summary: Billy hides behind the image.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 9
Kudos: 28





	Rolling Papers

**Author's Note:**

> Billy's a stick in the mud soft boy and you can't tell me otherwise!

He spends years trying to get beyond the stretch of his own skin. Sitting around all day because he’d rather be alone. Poking and feeling the curves and valleys of something too soft to belong to a boy. An alpha male, a. _Hargrove._ Until Billy can’t stand the sight of himself in the mirror over the bathroom sink.

So he gets into bartering. 

Selling his soul.

Going out the first time feels like pulling teeth. When 8 pm rolls around and Billy’s on the last chapter of _Animal Farm,_ blankets pulled up to his chin when the window slides open and Tommy says _there’s a party across town._

So they go. And a lot of times it feels like something Billy can hide behind, like. Playing the part of the asshole, the aloof older brother, and. 

The keg king.

Staying out and finding a place to keep himself warm, it becomes a form of protection. A kegger and a one night stand with some chick in the next town over, smoking a joint with Tommy as dawn breaks over the glassy mirage of the quarry, it’s a good way to forget it’s all just a façade.

Breaking and selling little pieces of himself.

Forgetting who he used to be in the heat of summer. The tears he used to shed over falling snow, forgetting. More and more and more until Billy’s skin isn’t soft, it’s hard. Rough and textured like a cardboard box covered in golden wrappers. Tucked under a cute little bow addressed to the wrong person, or.

People.

Neil and Max. Tommy. _Everyone,_ buys and sells the pieces Billy gives away. Opening the box and taking a look inside at who he is when the glitter fades, and. Realizing that he’s not as hard as he pretends to be. 

When the party’s over and Billy’s had one too many drinks and the cracks begin to show.

Little pieces gluing themselves back together.

Billy spends years trying to get beyond his own skin. 

The week before July Fourth, Neil catches Billy on his knees behind the shed. Lips wrapped around a pretty boy, head bobbing like a buoy in the ocean, and. 

Billy can’t walk straight for a week. 

He runs and fucks and drinks and convinces Karen Wheeler to meet out on Cornwallis. Motel Six. It takes two beers for his hands to stop shaking. Half a joint to put in the effort and the other half to make it past the stop sign.

Billy drives down a moonlit street and applies the mask with a practiced hand. 

_you don’t mind if i call you karen, right?_

Billy doesn’t think he’ll ever get those pieces back after the rest of himself is auctioned off.

Everything must go.

The box he’s wrapped himself in becomes weaponized. The auctioneer uses his wrapping, the glitter, the role, as a means to an end. 

Billy looks at himself in the mirror above the bathroom sink and wishes he had given in to his baser instincts and just stayed home.


End file.
